


Light Line

by Elleh



Series: Prince For Knight [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternative Universe - Kingdom, Angst, I AM SORRY, Knight Iwaizumi Hajime, M/M, Prince Oikawa Tooru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 15:39:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14475825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleh/pseuds/Elleh
Summary: The sad, sad follow-up of really hot, hot sex.





	Light Line

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I feel this, together with the two kinktober pieces, is just a bridge for another story? A sort of prequel, perhaps. Anyway, I've had this idea since I made it a series, so this sad shit isn't coming out of nowhere. Regardless, I know how characters *dying* sucks balls so feel free to just not read this because it's just sad.

It takes two weeks for the messenger to make it to the palace. Two weeks of no news, of a gloom covering the sky and a dreadful feeling feeding Tooru night after night.

He doesn’t need the messenger to speak to know what his words are going to be. He doesn’t need the letter to go from the king’s fingers to his own lap, where it stays untouched. Tooru looks askance at it, hands closed in tight fists on his throne armrests. The waves of the king’s questions and the messenger’s answers feel like water in Tooru’s ears, and it’s not until the king calls his name three times that Tooru finally tears his gaze away from the paper.

The words are burned in his retines, though, and his father’s voice barely registers.

“…you listening to me?”

“What,” Tooru manages, broken and choked. The king doesn’t have time for Tooru’s collapse, so he clicks his tongue, so much venom in the single sound Tooru feels it on his skin.

“You need to go to the front line and make a proper prince. My general needs to rest, so you’re gonna take his place.”

Tooru wants to argue. _I’m not a knight, I have barely any training, I can’t see Iwaizumi hurt. I can’t see Iwaizumi hurt. I can’t see him dead, gods, please don’t send me away._

He says, instead, “Okay.” And the king nods and that’s the end of it.

No one mentions Tooru’s broken pieces, falling to the ground with soundless thuds. No one speaks of the big elephant in the room in the shape of Tooru’s unprepared career, and of course there’s not a single whisper, not a thought, about Iwaizumi’s imminent fate.

Knights die in battle, but who’d dare word such truth when Tooru’s being is ripping apart in silent agony.

 

*

 

Tooru’s torture is endless. The days are infinite while they ride through the countryside, crossing hidden forests, avoiding the villages and any passerby. The cape his guard has forced him to wear hugs his shoulders like the god of dread, hunger and despair, a cloak for the wounded and doomed. It makes Tooru sink further into his mount, till at some point by the second day he’s not sure if he’s ever had legs that could hold his weight.

He doesn’t speak, although he’s been questioned several times through their journey. _How are we gonna defeat them, your majesty? How are we gonna fight, how are we gonna survive, how are we gonna face the reality of the head of knights never breathing again._

Tooru doesn’t know how he makes it to the camp. Like ghosts hunting sacred land, that’s how Tooru walks into it. Straight like a stick, as one with the saddle. _I’m not a prince_ , he thinks while the soldiers bow at him, hope and fear tainting their faces. _I’m not the prince you need_. But he says nothing, because no matter how shattered Tooru’s insides are, he can’t hurt them with that truth. They’ve been facing death over and over again for the length of two moons, young and broken men sacrificing their lives in Tooru’s name.

Tooru might be numb and broken, but he’s not soulless.

Yet.

Somehow words cross his lips. The sound’s vibration registers, but not so the meaning. For all he knows, Tooru’s mumbling nonsense, but the soldiers seem to understand. They nod and point to the far end of the camp, and Tooru walks through mud and broken pieces of metal, tents covering moans of pain and wounds that stink even from afar.

His mind is a chaos of noise and white fog, his heartbeat an out paced drum getting louder and louder the faster his steps get. Tooru has no clue where he’s headed until he stops dead on his tracks, sweat running down his neck and into the thick stupid armour his guard has forced on him. _You need to be protected, you can’t die, your majesty, you are the prince_.

The tent is quiet, for the most part. Only a soft grunt, sign of life or early death, comes from time to time from the inside.

Tooru stops breathing, he starts breathing so fast his brain can’t keep up.

Although he’s not wearing a crown, the ghost presence of it makes Tooru bend his head forward, ashamed. Protection, what a silly concept to be wary of in this hell of a place. Why should Tooru be the one protected now when he’s surrounded by kids ten years his junior dying for him. This war, and his crown, and his damn trembling lips are just a stupid charade, and he doesn’t deserve any of them.

Tooru gets into the tent.

The two soldiers nursing the wounded on the bed start, but don’t miss a beat before standing up and bowing low, low, low. Their noses almost brush their knees, because Tooru’s existence means more in this charged little space than life itself.

“Your Majesty.”

“Please, leave.” Tooru does register the meaning of his words this time, and it sounds hollow and choked.

The soldiers hurry outside, and Tooru’s left alone with his knight and his blood and the sharp smell of open wounds and infected flesh. His eyes burn, his head hurts, but overall, he can’t believe his lungs are still functioning when his heart has just exploded into a million pieces.

Iwaizumi lays dead but alive, more purple and red than Tooru has ever seen him before. Tainted white protects his wounds, but it can barely hide what’s underneath. They’d have to cover him whole to erase the truth of his body, bruises and ripped flesh and wounds eerily white.

A sob breaks the quiet of the tent, and Tooru cups his own mouth trying to erase it. Iwaizumi doesn’t even flinch, so deep in his fever and pain he hasn’t yet realised Tooru’s here with him, being torn apart by the sole sight of him. He lays breathing shallowly, sweat dirtying his already dirty face, running down his temples and into the corners of his eyes, tears for the fight he’s been fighting for almost three weeks and the one he’s clearly losing.

It’s impossible to acknowledge, even this close, so Tooru refuses to do so. Iwaizumi is not dying. The smell lies, and the messenger had lied too, and the wounds were never that deep, and the fact Iwaizumi had lasted _three weeks_ is proof enough that he’s gonna be alright and he’ll be frowning at Tooru’s antics and smiling secretly at him and loving him in the corners of their life in no time at all.

What a beautiful fantasy, so sweet it gets stuck in Tooru’s throat. At least now Tooru’s sobs are quieted down, and he can pretend to be somehow calm when he approaches the bed with tentative steps.

Iwaizumi opens his eyes, “Tooru?”

“Hello, my beautiful knight,” Tooru manages, trembling and teary. “You’ve made me travel a long way just to kick your dumb ass.”

“Tooru,” Iwaizumi repeats, wonder filtering in his glassy eyes, his voice barely a sound. “You’re here.”

“Yes.” Tooru kneels, because one doesn’t visit a temple without showing proper respect. It’s weird. Tooru has never felt more connected to any of the gods he believes in until now, so close to their realm he can’t but swim in pure terror. “Yes, of course I’m here. I have to make sure you behave like a proper knight, don’t I.”

“I am a proper knight.” Iwaizumi tries to smile, but through his teeth a wheezing sound covers his words. Tooru’s heart sinks. “I did die for you, after all.”

“Shut up.”

“Tooru—”

“No. I won’t allow it. I am your prince,” there’s a raging storm in his lungs, pushing the words out in fast speed, “and I _command_ you to live.”

Iwaizumi stares at him silently, the haze of pain never erasing the devotion from his gaze. Tooru’s hand finds its way into Iwaizumi’s hair, a soft brush, a ghost touch on his temple. It feels as if he touches Iwaizumi with a bit more strength, he will break him.

“I wish it were that easy.”

“It _is_.”

“Tooru.”

The damn tears are now in his throat and running down his cheeks and Tooru just wants to close his eyes and forget this is happening, that this is real, that he’s praying to Iwaizumi the same way he prayed to his gods, back in the time when he still believed in them.

The fact his prayers never had an answer then falls on him like a deadstone, and Tooru lets his head fall into Iwaizumi’s side, breathing in the unnatural heat of his body.

“Please, don’t die,” Tooru whispers in tears.

Iwaizumi wheezes, his heart drumming everywhere in an errating, slowing beat. Tooru hides in the hollow between Iwaizumi’s arm and the bed, and pretends this is not a war camp, this is not a dying bed, this is just another night in his chambers, where Iwaizumi lays satiated and lazyly, never mentioning the damn stupid elephant in the room but loving Tooru nonetheless in his silence.

“Tooru, look at me.”

The dream breaks, and Tooru shakes his head. “I can’t.”

“Please. Please, let me look at you before I—”

It’s as if an invisible force is moving him, for Tooru has no strength left and yet he lifts his head and meets Iwaizumi’s eyes. Tooru tries to push the words out of his mouth. Gods, they _burn_ , they are branding his tongue with their power, but it’s impossible. They’ve grown too big, too meaningful, too important. Tooru knows the second they leave his mouth, he’ll have to accept Iwaizumi’s fate and fuck it.

So instead he kisses Iwaizumi’s bruised mouth, the dry away from his lips. He stays there, locked to him for eternity, conveying what his heart can’t allow itself to say any other way.

“Hajime.”

Iwaizumi has his eyes closed and a soft, soft smile in his lips when Tooru leans back. He looks almost happy, almost ready, and Tooru’s tears start falling and falling and falling.

“Hajime, I—”

“I’m so happy I got to fight for you,” Iwaizumi says, breathing in deeply. “I’m so happy I got to be with you and love you, Tooru. Thank you.”

“What are you saying, Hajime, don’t be silly. Don’t be—”

Iwaizumi gives him another kiss, taking his truths away from the shallow of his words, a kiss so light it’s as if it never happened.

So light, Tooru’s sure it’s been Iwaizumi’s spirit that has kissed him in its way out.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I PROMISE THIS IS NOT THE END!


End file.
